Some homes today are equipped with smart-home networks to provide automated control of devices, appliances and systems, such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (“HVAC”) systems, lighting systems, alarm systems, and home theater and entertainment systems. Smart-home networks may include control panels that a person may use to input settings, preferences, and scheduling information that the smart-home network uses to provide automated control the various devices, appliances and systems in the home. For example, a person may input a desired temperature and a schedule indicating when the person is away from home. The home automation system uses this information to control the HVAC system to heat or cool the home to the desired temperature when the person is home, and to conserve energy by turning off power-consuming components of the HVAC system when the person is away from the home. Also, for example, a person may input a preferred nighttime lighting scheme for watching television. In response, when the person turns on the television at nighttime, the home automation system automatically adjusts the lighting in the room to the preferred scheme.
Additionally, many homes today are equipped with hazard detectors, such as smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors. Some of these homes have multiple hazard detectors, where each hazard detector is configured to sound an alarm upon detecting a hazardous condition. Upon hearing an alarm, occupants of these homes may have to search the home to locate the detector that is sounding the alarm to determine whether the alarm is false or whether a hazardous condition actually exists. This can be time-consuming, stressful, and potentially dangerous. Oftentimes the alarm is false. For example, smoke detectors located near bathrooms may mistake shower steam as smoke. Similarly, smoke detectors located in or near kitchens may mistake steam from boiling water as smoke. Also, smoke detectors located in or near kitchens may provide a large number of false alarms due to their over sensitivity to moderate smoke levels common to kitchens.
To avoid the nuisance of false alarms, occupants may disable hazard detectors, such as by removing the batteries or disconnecting the power supply. Disabled or otherwise ineffective hazard detectors result in preventable accidental home deaths. For example, people die each year in home fires, such as fires caused by occupants who fall asleep while smoking cigarettes, because the hazard detectors in their homes were disabled, or because the hazard detectors malfunctioned or were improperly installed. Also, for example, carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning kills approximately one thousand people per year, a lot of whom are children. It is likely that properly functioning CO detectors would have prevented some of these deaths. Accordingly, there is a need for improved hazard detectors for homes and buildings.